Characterization of the last deglacial transition in tropical East Africa: Insights from Lake Albert

Access Status

Authors

Date

Type

Metadata

Abstract

New biomarker analyses from Lake Albert, East Africa spanning ~15–9 ka show the most extreme, abrupt, multi-stage climate and environmental shifts during the last deglacial transition of anywhere in Africa. Records of hydroclimate expressed in compound specific δD values from terrestrial leaf waxes and a TEX86 paleotemperature record support multiple stages of pronounced drying and cooling from 13.8 to 11.5 ka and demonstrate the dynamic behavior of the low latitude tropics during the deglaciation. The vegetation response, illustrated by compound specific δ13C values and fossil pollen records, was an expansion of C4 grassland when the region was cool and arid. These results advance our understanding of a spatially and temporally complex regional response to global climate forcing, suggesting weakening of the Indian Ocean monsoon at the end of the Pleistocene that coincides with a minor decrease in the rate of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and during a time of stepwise cooling in the northern high latitudes.

The cause of warming in the Southern Hemisphere during the most recent deglaciation remains a matter of debate. Hypotheses for a Northern Hemisphere trigger, through oceanic redistributions of heat, are based in part on ...

Constraining the timing of past ice-sheet change is important for assessing the cryospheric expression of climate change and improving our understanding of ice sheet dynamics. Geochronology used to construct past ice-sheet ...

In the past, GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) monthly gravity field solutions have mainly been exploited to derive secular and seasonal mass changes on the Earth’s surface. After seven years in operational ...

Statistics

Curtin University would like to pay our respect to the indigenous members of our community by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which the Bentley Campus is located, the Wadjuk people of the Nyungar Nation; and on our Kalgoorlie Campus, the Wongutha people of the North-Eastern Goldfields.Watch our traditional Aboriginal welcome